Refrigerator door seal assembly

摘要

A refrigerator (10) has French doors (16) with vertically extending confronting side walls (102). At least one of the confronting side walls (102) has a movable sealing gasket member (108) adapted to sealingly engage the other confronting side wall when the doors (16) are in a closed position. The doors (16) move between an open position and into the closed position through a temporary intermediate partially closed position. In the partially closed position the doors (16) extend over the refrigerator compartment (18, 20) with temporary non-sealing vertically extending portions (106) of the confronting side walls (102) of the doors (16) spaced apart from one another a predetermined gap distance (G). A first set of magnets (114) are positioned in the doors (16) at least along the temporary non-sealing vertically extending portions (106) of the confronting side walls (102). The first magnets (114) have a magnetic field attraction strength insufficient to move the gasket member (108) across the predetermined gap distance (G) and sufficient to seal the gasket member (108) to the other confronting side wall when the predetermined gap distance (G) is reduced. A second set of magnets (120) have a magnetic field strength greater than the first magnets (114). The second magnets are positioned in at least one location along each of the confronting side walls (102) to trigger local movement of the gasket member (108) towards the other confronting side wall locally reducing the predetermined gap. This triggers the first magnets (114) to move the gasket (108) along the vertically extending portions (106) into sealing engagement with the other side wall. <IMAGE>